Life is much more complicated these days!!

I am working on regulatory change in financial services and have been trying to explain to some of my peers and colleagues that we are in a new world. The following graphics have proved useful in helping others understand.

To give a littel context to those not involved, the G20 countries agreed back in 2009 to implement new regulations and controls aimed at preventing another financial crisis such as the world experienced back in 2008. Whilst in broad agreement on the intent and approach each country headed off to make the necessary changes.

In the past regulatory change for most people has been a single set of rules, from a single regulator in a specific country/region. In this was usually a prescriptive piece on what needed to be done and when. This is not so these days, at least not in the field of major derivative regulation.

Currently the best known and most advanced are the US with the Dodd Frank (DF) act and Europe (including the UK) with the European Market Infrastructure Regulations (EMIR). Both place obligations on counterparties to deals involving counterparties that are deemed relevant.

To illustrate this simply, for DF, I drew the 3 x 3 grid below. The boxes with ticks show the business transactions covered by the DF rules, ie those with a US party (either client or market counterparty).

A similar grid for EMIR looks like this

 

 

This is clearly similar, but different.

 

If we now combine them we get this grid. In it some points are clearly only covered by Dodd Frank, while others are only covered by EMIR; and then some are covered by both (or possibly either).

 

 

The implication for a fund manager is that this is not "one size fits all", instead one has to consider where on the grid a particular trade or relationship falls and then decide upon the appropriate obligations.

 

In the "Either or Both" boxes the right answer may and probably will differ rule by rule. There is some movement between the US and European regulators to deem compliance with a compatible regime sufficient, but even with just two their rules differ. For example DF only requires one partyu, the senior party to the trade to report, while EMIR will require both to report. The implication is that for a european client trading with a US Swap Dealer, the US Swap dealer must report to a UStrade repository under DF, but as that is only one sided reporting EMIR will still require the european client to report to a european trade repository too.



Firms will need to think carefully about how they respond in the cross over boxes and how best to style there processes. By way of illustration and for the sake of argument, if one could freely choose one or other regulatory regime in the cross overs, then one might decide to deal with all US client business under Dodd Frank and all European client business under EMIR and deal with "other" clients case by case. Alternatively one might stripe it by counterparty rather than client. To add complications one may need one approach for one regulation and a different one for another.

Did I mention that they are implementing at different times too??


This is going to require plenty of "smarts", looking at these changes rather holistically and making judgements that are right for the firm. The alternative is an increasingly complex set of operational processes and relationships with clients and counterparties that will undoubtedly breed duplication and inefficiency - and thus avoidable cost.

I think that unless firms are smart they will suffer much more than necessary and may indeed be crushed by the growing burden. The time to start acting differently is now.

I hope this makes sense and if it encourages even one person to think again about how they are tackling this world of complicated change then it has been worthwhile!

Now please don't take this wrong!

There is something that feels so very wrong about yesterday's announcement that the UK government is placing a blanket ban on broadband services to home in Britain; that is unless you specifically request to have access to pornography.

Let me say that I am not advocating pornography, though I will admit having seen some over the years, initially as old magazines left in bushes by older boys through to the more modern digital versions. What I object to is something around the infringement of personal freedoms and the use of blunt instruments to grandstand for political advantage.

Part of the freedom is for an adult to view legitimate materials including pornography without having to feel a social pariah, but having to ask for the filters to be lifted. How long before this becomes a question on employment applications - "Do you have pornography enabled at home?"

I love this country and the freedoms we enjoy. I guess I have taken them for granted, but this one winds me up. If they can do this what will they do next? Anyone with any experience of these content filters knows that they are far from problem free or indeed complete.

A true story has an ex-colleague trying to buy strings ofr his guitar from work. This was allowed as the management recognised that allowing some personal use of the internet was actually a positive thing, but could be buy a G-string? I think not as the content filter prevented it.

I am also aware that there are ways around most of these and it will probably end up that any technology competent teenager will know how to get around the filters.

As my daughter has grown up we have placed various control, education and oversight. In the end we have a rounded young adult that we are proud of and who can deal with the curve balls life serves her. I much prefer this outcome.

And as for David Cameron, stop showboating with window-dressing initiatives such as this and fix the real problems with the economy. That is what you were elected for, not to place blanket bans across the country - we do not live in China!

7 minutes of infamy!!!

Well at long last I received the DVD of my standup comedy showcase. I am not sure why, but I was nervous about looking at it. My memory of the actual event is something of a grey, ill-defined silent movie so I was interested to see if anyone actually laughed?

Well the answer is taht some did, but maybe not that much. I would like to blame the sound recording for missing the laughs and I think that there may well be an element of that, but in then I recalled the context. I was the first act up. The audience was sober. And I was new.

All in all the video proves that I actually did it and I didn't die! It does however confirm that I should not (and indeed will not) give up the day job.

So now I have positioned it here is the video itself.

By way of contrast within minutes of receiving the video I received an email about the lecturing I did to the class of Chinese HR Directors at the Henley Management College. In that I was informed that the feedback on my session (three hours with simulataneous translation!) was 96%. That sounds pretty good to me.

I am not sure what to take from these two pieces. Is that I should focus on the lecturing and forget the comedy..........or..........maybe I should try standup comedy with a translator in tow and a chinese audience?

Anywhat it has certainly been a interesting couple of weeks.

A week on!

It is a week since I last blogged. I find that interesting as I have not felt the inclination to do so for the last seven days. It is not that I have not been doing interesting things, but maybe the better weather has had a calming effect on my mind?

This post is a reflection on the week, and as such anyone looking for more stimulating discourse is very welcome to click away now.

My last post was just prior the annual Curry Cup. Briefly this is an annual fixture amongst a group of friends (22 years now!) where the group all go out for a curry after. The winner gets to choose (and organise!) next year's venue and match and the loser gets the hottest curry in the house. The only choice the loser has is which type of meat?

I have played with this group for the last ten years or so and as a poor golfer I have been the recipient of the "hot curry" more than once, including last year. This year however I finished well out of the curry zone and as such enjoyed the freedom on the menu and relinquished the trophy toilet seat to an old friend.

It was a long, but comfortable drive home on Saturday, made all the better for the Lions winning the last test in Australia. There is something special about good radio commentary and that is what I was left with.

My personal time this week has been dominated with trying to make a video for my daughter's upcoming 18th birthday. My wife wants a whole collection of photographs and video clips of my daughter, from birth to today, put on a video over some music tracks.

Sounds simple eh? Well it is easier than it was in the past, but still not easy. I use Serif's MoviePlus X6 and it does a decent job with a lot of flexibility, but it still takes a long time; time to scan a load of old photographs, time to go through and select digital photographs, time to review and clip video pieces, time to make the music work and time to try and put it all together so that it looks decent.

The overall length will be around 9-10 minutes and I have easily taken 9-10 hours so far - and it is not complete yet. The other night the problems started. Firstly the amount of processing required caused the PC chip to overheat and the system to just close down. Fortunately I did not lose work, but I did lose time as I needed to let the PC cool down. I should say that I have a decent PC, but it is an all-in-one so maybe the cooling is not optimal?

Now I am aware of the heat issue I can deal with it, but complexity has appeared. I was trying to do it all in one video file. This was OK until the number of clips and effects became too numerous and the complexity caused performance to mimic swimming through treacle. At least that is my suspicion of the cause. So now I am trying to break the video into pieces that I will render and the construct at the end.

I will state the obvious - video editting is not my day job, so I know that I probably miss some obvious shortcuts or simpler approaches. This all adds to the time. I have a week left to complete this and believe that I will have it done in time. That said, I am pretty sure it will fall short of what my wife wants/expects, but it will be a hell of a lot better than nothing.

On another video note, I have not seem my standup comedy video yet and will have to chase them soon.

Not A Bad Week!

I am currently sitting in beautiful morning sun on the sea front in North Devon. Shortly I will go a visit an old boss who lives not far from here and then back to this foreshore to play our annual golf competition - The Curry Cup. This year we are playing at Royal North Devon Golf Club before the traditional curry this evening. I hope to avoid the vindaloo this time - the losers prize(!?!?!).

I drove down yesterday and joined the guys for a practice round. It was a long drive from London taking around 6 hours, albeit with two stops. I set of to cloudy sky and light drizzle finally seeing the first patch of blue sky around Bristol. I then when through three bands of rain before reaching Westward Ho! and blue sunny skies.

Yesterday's golf was not bad but there was a breeze. Today there is less wind!

On Tuesday I was running a session at the Henley Management course for HR Directors of a Chinese company with over half a million employees. It was my first experience of working with simultaneous translation. I was there for over three hours and was quite drained at the end. I did learn that there is no such thing as "one last quick question" in China. When this was asked at different points by the course director it resulted in one of delegates standing up and talking earnestly at me for over two minutes in Chinese. I, of course, had no idea what was being said and had to wit for the translation. This took another minute or two and usually started with "I have three questions...."!!!

The feedback from the Henley session seems to have been good so hopefully I will be invited back to do more.

So the week draws to an end with golf coming up and the video of my comedy standup showcase should arrive any day. I wonder if my wife will appreciate the concept of "comedic value"?

A Somewhat Surreal Evening

After a full weekend, I found myself at the Royal Albert Hall for a Jethro Tull concert. Ian Anderson has always been a bit different so I wasn't sure what to expect,

In the end we received a evening go progressive rock during which he/they played two complete albums, Thick As A Brick and Thick As A Brick 2. Along with Ian's trademark flute playing (and lots of standing on one leg ...... Not too shabby for a man of his age) we also enjoyed(?) an accordian, multiple appearances of a frogman in full scuba gear, plenty of mime and lastly Marc Almond as a guest vocalist.

During the encore we saw Marc singing Locomotive Breath - I didn't see that one coming!

It was odd.....a rock concert where no one stood up until the end and I would say the majority of the audience - maybe 70%+ - were male. And probably 80%+ were over 45.

As I said somewhat surreal.

Reaching The End Of The Comedy Roller Coaster

Until yesterday I did not realise how much of my time and thought this standup comedy thing had taken, last week more than ever.

On Saturday evening I was the openning act at the The Comedy School Student Showcase near Camden. Why I was selected to go first I don't know. It might have been a compliment about confidence or maybe that my material more suitable for a sober audience - two hours later I think alcohol was certainly contributing to the atmosphere.

On Wednesday we had been invited to an extra half hour one-to-one with our comedy coach. This was unexpected and we thought a response to the slating we had received the previous week. I tend to think now that it is fairly usual. In practice it was a "script" session, where we went over what we had written with the coach helping sharpen the material. I am still impressed how his mind works and finds the comedic value in almost anything.

He made what I though were good comments and I rewrote the material before the class next evening.

At the class we all did our pieces and then received feedback. To say we were slated again would be an understatement. This was certainly not a nurturing coach, but rather a psychological bruiser.
Maybe that is what is needed for the world of standup, but I know everyone went home somewhat deflated.

The main complaint was a lack of emotional connection and texture. For me the more I polish material the less emotion tends to be in there, so I felt conflicted. We were being taught the importance of the right words in the  right place in the right way, yet when I focussed on that I lost the rest. He kept saying that I reminded him of Patrick Moore!

As this was our last session I had drink with one of the guys, a surreal young Australian who reminds me of Noel Fielding. We talked about things that we could do better or different. I am disappointed to say that he didn't turn up on Saturday for the showcase, but maybe I will see his name somewhere in future - it is not one you forget - Shaulan!

For me I decided to go with what I felt was me. A more gaggy and observational delivery and I cut out the true but rather re-engineered stories. I was doing this between noon and 3 on Staurday afternoon before the show. Nothing like being last minute, but I felt happier at the end. I have no idea what our coach would have said and he was unable to be there on Saturday evening so I may never know, but he had said that we should find ourselves and our audience would find us - I think that is what I did - find myself I mean.

Of course nature conspired with the Northern Line being closed for engineering works so what should have been a relaxed journey became a nightmare of finding and then riding a replacement bus service. In the end I arrived on time.......just.

As I walked to the venue I had to lauch. It had been cited as Cecil House, but the in big letters it proclaimed itself to be the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Now this is one of the last places on earth you could expect to find me. The next two being sitting on the papal chair (I am not Catholic) and the other being High Hefner's mansion (I am not that lucky). I am the only person I know that was banned from dancing at their own wedding and as a precaution I had to mime my vows.

Anyway I did find some fellow performers there and the process started. They set up the running order and as I said I was first. Nerves were obviously getting to others, but for me I had done all I could. That said I decided to take advantage of being first and build a reference to the location into the opening of my act.

As the time approached I was pacing behind the entrance door. I heard my name and then I was on!

I think it went OK.....only when I see the video will I know. I got some laughs - I think - and I delivered most of what I intended to. I know I forgot and left out some, but I think it flowed OK. Afterwards my fellow class member had nice words about how it went and in the interval a couple of people from the audience had nice words. Maybe it was OK.

The best think about going first was I could then get a drink and watch the rest. No one died and we made a full show of around 2 1/2 hours.

We then received our certificates and the adventure was over. I seriously doubt that I will ever do it again, but I guess you never know. At least I know I could. I do have Ellen's 18th Birthday coming up sos maybe the Father's speech will be a little better that it might otherwise have been.

It is a shame my daughter was not there, but I did take the opportunity at the end of the act to mention her and wish her well in her acting career. That should be captured on video and eventually she will hear and know it.

All in all this was a more demanding challenge than I expected. I took a lot of time and energy from me. It made me look at certain things anew, with fresh eyes and I may have one or two new good friends.

Now to get back to the other things in life - like more interesting blogs and start thinking about Challenge 2014. I have already seen some fencing classes and am toying with that, but we shall see.

Thank you for sharing my journey and if the video is any good I may put it on Youtube. It is not due for a couple of weeks so please don't hold your breath.